


Of All the Gin Joints in All the World...

by legendarytobes



Category: Smallville, Smallville RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2143095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendarytobes/pseuds/legendarytobes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>---From purple_moon123's prompt "four times Chloe got stuck in the LnC world and the one time Clark got stuck there??" I decided to go wide with it and make it based around visits to the alternate universe where it's Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Supermaci's version of Metropolis. I also decided to take advantage of the generality of the prompt and set it in the Puppyville universe, which can be found in its entirety so far here: http://legendarytobes.livejournal.com/tag/puppyville</p>
<p> </p>
<p>---Traveling to other dimensions is hardly new to Chloe Sullivan; she just didn't realize how many alternate incarnations of mostly her life existed out there...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [purple_moon123](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=purple_moon123).



> Additional notes: Puppyville is the crackfic that keeps on giving. Long story shorter, back in April of 2007, the fabulous QueenC gave me permission to borrow the premise of a short crackfic she'd written, one that was a standard "turns into a fluffy animal" story/cliche. In her original story, "A Girl's Best Friend," Clark turns into a cocker spaniel puppy. I loved it so much that, with her blessing, I ran with it into a whole universe set circa s7 plot rumors so it grew into being both Clark and Kara have the world's lamest (and fluffiest) ability and eventually ending up married to Chloe and Jimmy, respectively.
> 
> Because I'm odd and that wasn't nearly convoluted enough, the world also crosses over both with Supernatural as well as, not going to lie, CW Real Person Fic with Tom Welling/Allison Mack and Michael Rosenbaum/Kristin Kreuk pairings.
> 
> All you really need to know is that, while Smallville and SPN exist in the same world, to get to our reality in which the CW is a real network and Clark's life is just a TV show, one needs magic. Chloe and Clark have a stone that makes such travel possible (Tom and Al have a complimentary one), but this story starts when Chloe gets sucked to the wrong place...
> 
> Yeah, again, just go with it.

I. Hamlet Was Understating It

Chloe was not amused.

She was beyond not amused. She was, in fact, at the point where she was going to sit Clark down with a lead box, grill him for a few hours, and be quite pleased when she got to open the box and reveal nothing inside but still revel in making him sweat. Jerk deserved it. Someone had forgotten to put the pebble from Mr. Tam's shop back where it belonged. They kept it locked up at all times because traveling through dimensions was not something eight year olds should play with and with their litter (somewhat literal) of mischievous but not yet indestructable kids around, the last thing they need was for one of them to get sucked over the rainbow.

Someone like Jack-Jack.

His three sisters---Gabriella, Kyla, and Moira---were having a sleepover with Kara's daughter Alura. Jack-Jack had been bummed out about it. He was starting to realize his sisters were going to get invited places he wasn't but still feeling put out because, while a thirteen year old might humor eight year olds if they were all girls, that no teenage guy was going to hang out with a "little kid." Chloe thought they'd settled the issue. Yes, Jack-Jack had complained all dinner about at least being allowed to use the magic pebble in order to see Emma. (Chloe'd almost been killed by her first mutant at fourteen, was a member of the Justice League herself, and was married to Kryptonian. She'd long given up thinking anything was too weird in her life.) That was a no-go.

Jack-Jack whined, then he left the table without finishing dinner. He even went into his room and shifted to his other shape to deliberately maul his pillows. Chloe was far from amused. It was hard enough that Clark was off world and she got sick of all the favors the Lanterns called him in for. John Stewart needed to use Wonder Woman more; she didn't have four children unlke some frontliners that Chloe could name. Still, she'd walked into his room about thirty minutes into his sulk, spied the feathers everywhere, especially coating the Wolfhound puppy's fur, and shaken her head.

Some days, she wished "You wait till your father gets home" actually carried some weight.

Clark was such a pushover, especially for the girls, that it was pretty much a nonthreat. Still, she thought after she'd issued the standard punishment of barn chores at human speed for a week, that Jack-Jack had at least stopped growling.

Several hours later, Chloe'd come to his room with hot cocoa and marshmallows. She'd wanted to cheer her boy up. After all, it wasn't his fault that his older cousins were being difficult or that Tom was being more difficult about visiting time with Emma. Needless to say, when she found his room empty, she'd had a heart attack and almost called Watchtower directly, afraid that someoen had kidnapped her son.

Unfortunately, as good as they were about League security and codenames, it would not have been the first time.

A frantic search through the apartment before calling the Batman at least let her know that Jack-Jack hadn't been stolen, but he was breaking about every rule they had. She rushed into her room to see him---tail and all---biting right through the box that held the pebble. Clark was so dead. The fact he'd left it where their son could get to it was unforgivable.

"Jonathan! Put it down now." Chloe was proud of herself for not actually saying the words "bad dog." Her family weren't exactly dogs. Well, sometimes they were but they weren't and it was all so freaking complicated. Still, she never wanted them to feel less than human, just be disciplined. "I said do it."

Jack-Jack shook his head at her and spit the pebble out of his mouth. Then, he set his left front paw over it and closed his eyes, clearly concentrating. Chloe rushed to him and at least had her hands in his scruff and was reaching down for the pebble when the world flashed.

It made her dizzy to land in the middle of a nondescript back alley.

Perfect.

Her son had wanted to go to L.A., and he'd ended up in skidrow and not Burbank.

Chloe dug into his fur and reached for the pebble again. "Jack-Jack, you know better. You're in so much trouble. You know Aunt Kris and Uncle Sam are going to have to help me think up a really good one. You can't touch the stone."

He twisted and snuck out from under her. In a blur, he was gone, and Chloe was really beyond furious. Her children were fast, strong, and had phenomenal hearing. They could also shift. They were too young to have developed all of Clark's abilities, but the speed they'd had since they were six and they had been told never to use it against her, since she couldn't follow them. Usually, they were great about respecting that.

Jack-Jack could be rowdy, but he'd never challenged her like this before.

Frustrated, Chloe shoved the stone in her pocket and headed to the street. Cell phones based in her world wouldn't work here. She'd have to find a business, beg them to let her make a call, and get Tom or Al to come get her so she could then finish killing her son. Once she got out of the alley, she stilled, ice creeping over her skin.

They weren't in Los Angeles, neither her version or Tom and Al's.

She frowned, staring at the building across the street from her. It was a large, red brick number and did at least look like it had been in whatever town this was since the turn of the century. It seemed a bit older than the art deco style of where she worked, but it still called itself The Daily Planet.

She blinked again and looked up to see the globe at least spinning at the building's top. It was made of steel and didn't gleam the way the golden one of her world did, but wherever she was (such an operative question), she was in a Metropolis, just not the one she wanted.

Sighing, Chloe shoved the pebble in her jeans pocket. Well, if her Clark was off-world and Jack-Jack could be anywhere in this universe and probably as confused as she was, at least she might find a Superman to help her out.

Idly, thinking back about things Tom and Clark had both told her, she wondered if this one would look like Dr. Virgil Swann too.  
**

"Cat's looking at you," Lois snapped.

Clark sighed and looked back over his shoulder. Cat was not his type. He was twenty-six, not stupid and certainly not as naive as everyone assumed just because he was a transplant from Kansas. Even if he wasn't from the hustle and bustle of New York state and its second largest city, The Big Apricot, didn't mean he didn't know what Cat Grant wanted. Hell, any man with eyeballs would know what Cat Grant wanted.

The redhead had made her intentions obvious. No one needed to lean that close to get help with typing up a story.

It was driving Lois crazy.

Clark adjusted his glasses and went back to his story. Let it. Sure, he liked her an awful lot, and, yes, he'd love to really ask her out, but he wasn't sure he was ready to do that yet. While it was flattering she was awestruck by Superman, it was less reassuring that for all their camaraderie she treated him with disdain still as a junior partner.

He'd been working The Planet beat for six months, had shared bylines with her repeatedly by now, and was getting better all the time. He wasn't some hayseed.

Lois, for all her good points, was infuriating. She was always too entangled with Lex Luthor or too dewy-eyed after his alter ego. However, in all insane twists, she was starting to get jealous of Cat's over the top attempts to seduce him. Clark would love to give in to all of it, but not if she didn't actually respect him, just the Clark Kent part. After all, that was who he truly was.

God, it was probably a really bad sign to be irrationally jealous of yourself for lack of a better way to describe Superman.

"Clark, I'm serious. Not to go for the easy joke but she's basically like her name sake. In heat much?"

"Lois, I have till five to get this over to Perry for edits. Let me finish."

"Fine then," she huffed, stalking over toward the woman in question. "I'll have to remind her of Planet dress codes myself."

"Have fun," he said, focusing back on LexCorp's newest prototype unveiling. He was working out a nasty dangling participle---he needed more sleep, was definitely being sloppy---when he heard a cough above him.

"Jimmy, I know that Lois and Cat are eventually going to fight each other full-out. I do not think adding mud is the answ...oh," he said, frowning back at the brunette in front of him. She didn't look any older than he was, frankly maybe a little younger, and was even shorter than Lois. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a high pony tail and she sized him up with intense eyes that belied a sharp intelligence and attention for detail. "Can I help you miss?"

"Sullivan, Chloe Sullivan."

"So is that like being a double oh?" he asked, amused. "Are you part of the intern program? They usually work in the basement."

She laughed. "Well some things do stay constant, but no, and that's so cute. Clark, I've been working for the Planet since I was eighteen years old."

He eyed her, maybe she was his age after all and was just the type to always need to be carded. "Oh, sorry. Can I still help you?"

The strange girl shook her head and put her hands on her hips. It gave Clark a bit of deja vu, made him think of Lois. Weird. "I've been working at a Daily Planet office for almost fifteen years."

"Right," he replied, standing and narrowing his eyes at her. Maybe she wasn't well in the head. There was no way she was thirty-five, no possible way. He might be an alien, apparently, and how great of his parents not to tell him until well into adulthood, but some things just weren't real. "Do you need me to help you? Met Gen has a psych ward."

She spoke and he realized that she'd dropped her voice deliberately to a whisper only he could have heard. "You're Kal-El of Krypton or Superman, whichever you prefer, though I'd wager Clark's your favorite moniker, and I need your help desperately."

"Excuse me?"

She smiled, an unsettling Cheshire cat grin, and nodded toward the stair landing door. "We'll talk privately, just whisk me wherever."  
**

If she wasn't worried about her only son, Chloe almost would have enjoyed this. There was something very funny about dealing with a version of the man she knew so well but in a way where she probably knew more about his life and his coming struggles than he did. Oddly, at a moment like this, it was Mike and his own savant comics knowledge that made her pause. It was probably a terrible idea to tell him too much. He wasn't young, exactly, far older than Clark had been with Davis aka Doomsday and even still a bit older than when Darkseid had first met them. Still, he wasn't exactly what she'd expected, as if he'd not gotten into this but recently.

It was all in the tells.

The way he hadn't expected her to know. Her Clark had had too many visitors drop in on him since the people from the Black Ship back in high school to ever really be surprised when someone knew who he really was. Somehow this one wasn't yet a magnet for all the weirdness of the world.

He also didn't look much like hers. That made a modicum of sense. If once someone who looked like Virgil Swan had been a Superman actor or however it lined up, well, there were obvious basic resemblance----tall, dark, broad-shouldered. Still, it wasn't nearly the same. Clark and Tom, to be fair, towered over everyone. They weren't just tall; they were massive. The man in front of her was shorter but broader still, more like a football player's stature than Clark had been even at his quarterback best. He also had a complexion and look about him that was vaguely reminiscent of Lana, something almost Asian back in his heritage.

She shook her head, realizing she'd never fully understand the universes.

"Nice place, a little Spartan."

"Talk," he said, his hands crossed over his chest. "Talk fast."

"I'm Chloe Sullivan."

"You said that. That doesn't really help me."

She blinked, confused. Usually there were some constants. Granted, her counterpart in L.A. wasn't called "Chloe Sullivan" but Al had literally played her on TV for a decade. Maybe she'd been wrong about constants, although he was still named "Clark Kent" and "Superman" talk had gotten his attention in a big way.

Hell, the way his eyes were red glaring at her told Chloe it had really gotten to him.

"Chloe Sullivan? Okay, maybe I'm doing this wrong. Does Lois Lane ring a bell? She's my cousin or like Lana Lang or Lex Luthor?"

Clark's eyes were brown again, and he frowned. "Lois works with me. We've been reporting partners for six month. Lex is always behind things, as far as I have seen, but I can never quite get enough on him to make it public and make it stick."

"Some things never change," she huffed. "At least we have some common ground then."

"Lana and I dated a bit in high school."

"Definitely familiar territory," she said, her voice neutral. She'd lived her Lana and Clark rollercoaster but it had been twenty years since she'd been bitter about it. Chloe blamed imprinting for the whole mess; she was to Clark the way that awful, smelly, pipe-come-chew toy was to Sherlock. Kryptonians and instincts, yeesh. "But not Chloe? Maybe an Allison, perhaps?"

"No."

"I'm, well not your Lois, but I'm Lois Lane's cousin."

"Lois has a sister named Lucy, but that's not someone she really mentions a lot, Chloe. What's with the twenty questions. How do you know about me?"

Wow, they did not have time for this. It could take a novel or two's worth of space to explain it all.

Sitting down on his modest and torn sofa, Chloe held out her hand and let it glow, noting his shock at the rose-light spreading over her palm. Hmm, he hadn't seen a lot of meta-humans yet. That would change too.

"I'm a mutant. This is all very complicated so I'll explain what I can. First of all, I'm not from here. I'm from a universe a few hops over and magic brought me here by mistake and don't even."

"I wasn't going to say anything, yet," he replied, tone level. Huh, he was less likely to argue and fly off the handle than either Clark or Tom. Finally, someone with restraint. "Please continue. You have my attention, believe me."

"Anyway, there are so many incarnations of your story out there, worlds where things with Kal-El of Krypton or his story go so much differently. My Clark found one once where he was raised by the Luthors and murdered hundreds of people. Another we stumbled upon is probably more stupid than most---"

"How?"

"It's all a TV show, I mean. Everything about Superman is a TV show and the actors on it and us sort of crossed paths. It's a little annoying knowing they put your life on film and didn't pay you for it. Although, I have to admit, I like Al, Kris, and Tom enough not to feel badly about it. Rosey might owe me back pay."

"Now you're just being nuts."

She held up her glowing hand. "Nuh-uh, not done yet. In my version, well, your powers are a bit more eclectic."

"And you know I have them?"

"Well, obviously," she replied. "You must be fairly worried about me either way or you wouldn't have sped me here. Notice how I wasn't vomitting or disoriented when I got here. I've done that so many times now that I've lost count."

"Right," he said, his brows furrowed in confusion. "You've done this a lot with your Clark."

"Yes. You're the last Kryptonian in the universe, as far as you know. You were sent here by your birth parents Lara and Jor-El as a baby and the Kents found you and adopted you and didn't tell you anything till high school."

He burst out laughing and she frowned at him. Huh, now she was losing her ground. Something about his reaction was more unnerving than when he hadn't recognized her name or at least Al's. Did she not even have a counterpart here? If she didn't, then why?

"My parents just told me about six months ago, a little after I moved to Metropolis. So I don't even know where you're getting your intel but you're wrong."

"And Tom's still just an actor, um, mostly." She was not getting into details about idiots who dangled chew toys too closely and Cocker Spaniel being contagious. That was neither here nor there, really. "And my Clark's a lot different from you."

Although if he hadn't known---and that made his parents both better liars and a lot more cruel than Martha and Jonathan back home---then she doubted his shower had mutated Smallville either. He'd lived in a place where he'd never really had to refine his powers or have fought unusual threats early in life.

Interesting.

No reason he seemed so naive.

"Okay, I...you're right about the Kal-El stuff and Superman, but you can't know that."

"I can know a lot of things," she said quietly. "It doesn't always match, not really, but the main details are mostly the same. You're fast, strong, mostly invulnerable except for meteor rocks or magic."

"Magic doesn't exist."

Despite everything, she grinned at that. "Trust me, I was possessed for a few days by a French witch when I turned 18. Worst birthday party ever. It's real and it will hurt you once you run into it."

"Right."

"Anyway, the heat vision, the X-ray vision, the superbreath, the better than normal bits of sight with telescopic and microscopic vision. Oh, flight, I forget that one a lot."

"You forget it? What does your so-called Clark not have it?"

She snorted. According to Kara, her Clark was still a shit flier. Chloe didn't think that was necessarily true, but Kara was more adept at it overall, probably would be. Clark hadn't mastered it till he was twenty-five and against Darkseid.

"It took a while, he was almost about your age before he could do more than float. So, it's not really his strongest skill."

"Weird, I had it really controlled by about fifteen."

"Yeah, mine's gonna be jealous," she said. "Look, I just want to go home. I can do that and poof right out of here, no inconvenience, the moment I find who I need."

"Is your Clark here too?"

She shook her head and killed the glow in her head. Her knowledge and mutant street cred should have been enough to let him know she was neither crazy nor a liar. "No, but our son is."  
**

Clark blinked back at Chloe. She was beyond confusing to him. Her story was insane, even for an alien with superpowers, but he couldn't deny that she knew things about him she couldn't. No one but his mother and father knew about his birth name or planet or his actual heritage. No one but the three of them knew his whole roster of powers. Besides, what she could do? He'd never seen another individual with powers before, even if they weren't at all like his.

Her story might be batshit, but it had at least some kernels of reality still to it.

Then she went and started explaining about an ability he most assuredly did not have.

"See, okay, I know you're not going to believe this part."

"I'm barely believing you now."

"Point," she replied. "But I know this isn't anywhere else, and I don't know why. Mike swears no one's ever heard this part ever and he's read so many comics."

"I'm a comic book too?"

"Oh boy, yeah, like the comic or so I'm told. Anyway, look, there's no not crazy way to say this so fuck it. My Clark's a shapeshifter."

Oh god, give his crazy body and powers ideas. "Excuse me? Like a werewolf?"

She laughed and laughed as if it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. "Oh, he wishes. No, a Cocker Spaniel. It's cyclical and he and his cousin Kara both do it."

"I have a cousin?"

"Some day, I'm sure you'll meet her," Chloe agreed. "Anyway, he's a Cocker Spaniel on occassion and our four children---"

He gulped. "Four?!?"

"Litters," she said, shrugging as if that wasn't the creepiest thing he'd heard so far.

Wait.

Had she and the other Clark...wow, there boundaries and fetishes he didn't want to think about.

She blanched as if she realized where his thoughts had headed. "God no. Never, not once, no. I just had quads but they can shift too. My son, Jack-Jack got his paws literally on the stone I use to dimension hop. He was supposed to be taking us to L.A. to see, well, I guess you could say his girlfriend but he's never used the stone before and we got off course."

"Girlfriend? You said he was eight."

"It's a crush."

"So, puppy love?" Clark asked, smirking.

"Not if Tom had his way and that's why Jack-Jack wasn't invited to come over and he didn't like that and he's sped off on me and I can't find him by myself all alone in a version of Metropolis I don't know," Chloe's tone was level but Clark could tell her heart was racing. She was good at at the calm facade overall, but she was worried.

"You are serious or at least you believe every word of it."

"I do. What made up your mind," she asked, frowning back at him.

"I've seen my mom look at me like that, especially when we first discovered the meteor rocks could hurt me. You're scared for your son."

"He's strong and fast, not as fast as you, but far faster than any human or meta. I can't catch him if he doesn't want to be found."

"I wouldn't know where to start. I assume he looks like me a little, yes?"

"Well, right now, he has four paws and and a tail..."  
**  
Clark handed the naked little boy a pair of Mickey Mouse pajamas in his size. He'd grabbed some fast from a store before setting off to the skies. He'd spent the day criss-crossing the city, looking for an aimless wolfhound puppy (Chloe had no idea why her Irish set the whole breed thing off and fuck if Clark knew or really cared). It was a bit advantageous this kid was a purebred. Street dogs were common in a city as large as Metropolis, very few of them were pedigreed.

None but Jack-Jack were strong enough to move a whole dumpster.

He'd spotted the puppy nudging it out of the corner with just his snout, probably hungry and desperate for some kind of meal.

Clark had landed and the boy had shifted back instantly, probably seeing his suit and assuming he was Jack-Jack's actual father and not an alternative version. Huh, maybe the suit never changed. Who the Hell knew?

The little boy shivered a bit and slipped on his outfit. Clark was kind enough to look away, although the kid didn't seem overly bothered by being caught naked. Maybe it was a shapeshifter thing. It wasn't like they'd be prone to carrying pants everywhere.

Jack-Jack was crying softly, and stepped back a bit when Clark reached for him. "You're not my dad."

"No," Clark replied, throat tight.

It was silly, but it hurt to see him just the same. He hadn't dated in a long time, not since Lori, but he would love a son of his own. If this Clark had one, there was at least hope, which was more than he'd had since his parents had come clean about his real origins. However, he knew he couldn't turn into a damn dog, and Chloe confessed her Clark had done that by nineteen. There was a chance he could have kids some day, but he wasn't going to hold his breath either.

"You're wearing his clothes, and you have his powers," Jack-Jack looked over his shoulders and fur was already spreading over his face and hands. Clark moved quickly enough to put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Are you going to hurt me? Are you bad? Like Zod?"

"I don't know what a 'Zod' is?"

Jack-Jack frowned and took a deep sniff of Clark's shoulder. Then he smiled widely. "You smell like mom!"

"She found me and she's waiting for you at my apartment. She's mad but she just wants to take you home."

"I..."

"Come on, let's fly."  
**

Chloe hugged Jack-Jack so tightly that Clark was sure if it were any other child, he'd have suffocated by now.

The boy pulled back and was crying. "Mommy, I can explain and don't kill me and I ran away to find Emma and I couldn't and I was so scared and..."

Wow, when did he find time to breathe? And she had three others just like him?

She touched his cheek, and Clark noticed her hand was glowing again. Jack-Jack relaxed into that touch and smiled. "I love you, and you are going to have a serious punishment, but I'll always love you. Why don't you go to the kitchen for a minute and make a snack." She grinned back at Clark, her smile as wide as her son's. "I'm sure this Superman has tons of junk food."

The kid ran to the kitchen counter so fast, Clark knew instinctively that it would have looked like a blur to any human.

Chloe took his hand and gestured toward his bedroom. "I just need some place with privacy. The kids can hear fantastically, but they won't do it. We teach them not to invade privacy."

Clark decided it would be suicidal to ask if that was like when she'd trained them not to run away or steal magical heirlooms, but followed to his room where he shut the door.

"This isn't some weird seduction thing because Cat Grant is already breathing down my neck and Lois is sending mixed signals."

"Married, quads, and mostly tired between reporting and world saving. Uh, no. Besides, you're still just a kid."

"You don't look very old to me."

She shrugged. "I'm an empath; I heal things. It keeps me young but your own abilities, at least with Clark and, frankly, again communicable or not, I have serious suspicions with Tom....well anyway, you won't look much older than you do now in a decade or six either."

"I don't believe you. It's not like I shift."

She sighed and smiled sadly back at him. "This one? I'm not wrong about it. Rosey's emphatic on that being a constant. The yellow sun sometimes gives a lot more than you want."

"Huh?"

"You'll see," she said. "Look, I don't know why I'm not here or why you don't have a 'Chloe' of your own, I mean. Still, I know that any Lois would protect you and your secret in a heartbeat. Lois loves Clark and Kara like family and she's the best aunt to my kids. I...if you want to get closer to her, even if my Clark and Lois get along, well, like cats and dogs---"

He grimaced. "That's not literal is it?"

"Well Clark is dog-like some days, but Lois is one hundred percent human where I'm from, far more normal than I am. My point is, Lois is a good woman. That's a constant cause I know my family and Sullivan-Lanes are tough as nails and honest. She'd understand, Clark."

He snorted, "I don't even understand it, and, today, I understand it less than ever."

Chloe considered that. "You and mine are defintiely not that different, not where it matters," she finished gesturing to his chest. "You'll feel comfortable letting someone in some day. My Clark had his share of confidantes, even before me. Hell, maybe I shouldn't even be saying it, but she won't run and grab a pitchfork, promise."

"I...thanks."

She grinned and reached up to hug him. As she broke away, she pulled out her stone, a smooth onyx pebble that looked anything but enchanted and opened the door. "I need to stop Jack-Jack before he eats you out of Oreos and Cheez-its, but thank you."  
**

"Buddy," Clark said, and both she and her husband were glad the girls weren't back from Kara's.

After hearing about all the misadventures of Chloe and Jack-Jack through the looking glass, her cousin-in-law had been kind enough to keep the girls one more day. She'd intended to give the "we don't run to different dimensions" talk to her son alone but, thank God for at least one break, her husband had arrived home from Andromeda two hours ago.

And he'd heard an earful since.

"Daddy," Jack-Jack said, eyes shining from unshed tears. "I'm really sorry."

"That's not good enough this time," Clark said, voice quiet. "You could have gotten lost forever. If your mom hadn't followed along with you, even Aunt Kris and Uncle Jimmy might not have found you. Do you get that?"

"I only wanted to see Emma!"

Chloe sighed and let Jack-Jack nestle into his side. "I know, I do."

"Why can't we visit more? We haven't been in forever!"

"Two months," Chloe corrected. "We didn't make that call. Emma's mom and dad asked." Why she wasn't sure. She'd tried to get Kris or Mike to tell her; Mike clearly didn't know or he'd have cracked and Kris was too resourceful to fall for bribery or threats. "But I can talk to Aunt Al. Maybe we can figure something out."

Her son hiccupped and rubbed at his eyes. "I think I did it."

Clark frowned and leaned forward. "How's that, buddy?"

"Last time we were over, I played chase with Emma, and I convinced her to get out of the yard and we chased the cat next door. Uncle Tom yelled a lot."

Huh, that explained it.

Chloe shook her head. "We'll get a banned lifted on all things, uh, Smallvillian, promise."

"Good cause Emma's really pretty."

Chloe snorted and looked back at Clark. See, imprinting. He was as gone on Emma as his father's tiny puppy brain had ever been on Lana. God, her boys were so simple.

"I'll fix it," she said, kissing his forehead. "Don't do this again, ever, no matter who you miss, and you will have so much fun helping grandma file papers at her office in D.C."

"Mom!"

"For four weeks on Saturdays, Jack-Jack. Never again," she said, standing up to leave.

Her son surprised her by asking a question about something she didn't think he'd care about. "Mom? What about the other Superman, the one not like dad?"

"What about him?"

"Will we see him again?"

She sighed and thought about how much trouble interdimensional penpals had already caused, and it was buckets upon buckets if you asked Tom. Chloe wasn't sure she wanted more pals across the rift.

"Honey, I don't know."  
**

"So you weren't around all day yesterday. I get back from yelling at Cat, and you're just gone like poof." Lois pushed a strand of her black bob behind her ears. She was staring up at him and, for an instant, he wondered if she was starting to put his disappearing act and Superman's appearances together. He really wanted her to. Then she sighed dramatically and glared back at Cat, today in something he was pretty sure was composed of lycra. "Did you get sick or something?"

Clark took off his glasses and played with them nervously. No such luck. "Not exactly."

He wasn't sure one hundred percent that he had been fully healthy or that Chloe had been real, but the eaten up Oreo bag was still in his trashcan so maybe it had happened after all.

"Oh, well you know you can't just run off. In the city, we have a time clock."

"You know, I did go to NYU. I've seen a city before."

"Sure, you have Smallville, sure. Anyway, did you find a lead on something."

"You could say that," he replied, grinning. He did like how Lois's nose scrunched up when she got flustered or thought she was being cute. It was adorable.

"On?"

"Not ready for prime time yet," he answered. "So, uh, Lois do you have plans on Friday night?"  
**

II. Three's a Crowd

"Chloe, if there's an apocalypse, then that is not on my roster, ever. I have fleas but I don't actually do anything," Tom drawled, glaring at where she'd apparated in his office.

She rolled her eyes; the man could outrun her uncle in the bad moon department, such a grouch most days. "First, really, there's a collar for that. Also, no thanks. I have the League, Lex, and the Winchesters for that. Besides, you'd heard that Hitch and Hancock are in the Titans now."

Tom raised an eyebrow at that. "Isn't fourteen a bit young for that?"

"Really? You're gonna ask that? Clark was doing all sorts of crap as a freshman."

"The world's largest freshman, however that works," he muttered. "Okay so Kara's sons have even gone pro. What could you possibly want from me?"

"I love you too, Zoolander."

"Bitch."

"Not the way Kara is," she sing-songed. "Besides, I was wondering if you've ever been one to pay it forward."

That got his attention. Tom wasn't a bad guy, wasn't really Clark except basically a dead ringer appearance wise, if he'd ever bother to cut his hair or shave. That said, he was hands off on anything weird if he could help it, and mostly busy working on whatever film he was directing at the time, or, okay, also his work as "Watson," family pet, on that sitcom he did for quick cash. All that aside, Tom was naturally curious. While he might complain endlessly about having what he'd dubbed the world's worst ability (Clark bit him and it was an accident so really let it go after so long), Tom loved to snoop. Some days, even with all the hassle of it, Chloe wondered if he'd really trade his hearing for being typical again.

She would be money on it that, when pressed, he wouldn't.

"Okay, so you want to see me and not Kris or Al or Mike because?"

"Mike can't be trusted. He's like dragging a four year old somewhere."

"That's about right."

"Al's about as bad on her own and, while she's super nice, well, I wanted a bit more finesse on this one."

"Well, that's actually flattering---"

"And Kris is in Ghana filming something so that left you."

His expression soured as he tented his fingers together in front of him. "So you came to me cause I'm the only one around?"

"Yeah, and you all know more than me about some of this stuff."

"About?"

"The way, I guess, Superman, is supposed to go. I know our version is beyond messed up."

Tom laughed, his posture finally relaxing. There. Was that so hard? "Jimmy Olsen is married to Supergirl and has puppies with her. You and Clark are an item, and he and Lex are best friends forever. Your version is off the map, Chloe."

"Point, but, well, look. Al really helped Clark not 'fuck it up' with me. I mean he did, but he fixed it up eventually too, and I wonder if he ever would have without her help. Maybe sometimes, you just need an out of universe push."

Tom considered that and stood up, putting an old Mets cap over his greasy mop of hair. Really, Clark would never do that. Even if it took heat vision acrobatics (don't ask), he was always neat as a pin. Maybe Ollie hadn't been that off with the "boy scout" code name after all.

"Whose universe you want to fix? Mine's as good as it's going to get, thanks Clark."

"Tired of the complaining," she said, unmoved.

"I was saying, mine's fine and yours is great and epic and weird but it works for you."

"Thanks and perceptive."

"Well, I'm not Kris but I try, right?"

"And so you're my guy in a pinch. Look, yeah, about a year ago Jonathan got a hold of the stone."

"I remember. You came here after that and reamed me out for two hours before I let him visit Emma again."

"They're friends. He talks about her like basically the second coming. I get Clark and Lana flashbacks, constantly."

Tom snickered and leaned against his desk. "You're very old to be jealous and catty about that now."

"I'm not, but I'm making a point. My kid's smitten, and I'd be willing to wager yours is as well."

"And they're nine and eight so they have no clue what they're thinking. They visit. I allow it, but Emma has normal friends too and---"

She held up her hand; this would get them nowhere. "I swear the more the universes mix things around, the more they stay the same. We'll deal with your subscriptions later."

"I don't have issues or those either. I'm a realist."

"You're talking to a comics character, as far as you knew once. Reality flew out the window."

"Not much of one," Tom said under his breath.

Chloe frowned at him. "What does that even mean?"

"Nothing, forget it. It's not worth it. So if it's not your universe and it's not mine that needs a push, where are you taking me? Because if it's to meet like the Avengers or something, I think I'm going to pass."

She snorted and slipped the rock out of her pocket. "It's a little more familiar than that."  
**

Clark hadn't felt like he could be more raw or more naked. He wasn't of course. He was sitting there in his suit at the edge of the fountain, not sure about what was going to happen. He could stop Lex Luthor and every mad scientist in town, but letting Lois know who he really was had torn through him. Maybe if he'd had a choice, been able to set it up better, but time travel and H.G. Wells, no really, had gotten all in his way. He'd had to confess then, since Lois already knew, and his ring had felt stupid and pathetic in his hands.

It was obviously out of pity and total brain overload that Lois had said she needed some time to think it over before going to her place.

Perfect.

He couldn't wait for tomorrow at work where she could tell him no to his face. If she did, he'd probably just go home to Smallville and take the offer he'd had recently to be EIC of their tiny weekly paper. At least he wouldn't have to see Lois staring at him every day like he was a fraud. He could fly anywhere in a blink. Metropolis would still be his city. He just wouldn't feel so pained by her dismissal, day in and day out that way.

Of course, Lois being Lois, she'd still be getting into trouble and he'd still have to save her. That could get awkward too.

Clark sighed and set his head in his hands. Some days, he wasn't sure if his Kryptonian parents had fuck-all clue what they were doing when they sent him away. A small, delicate hand was on his shoulder and his head shot up faster than it should have. Lois couldn't be back, could she? Was she saying yes?

His shoulders slumped when he found Chloe Sullivan, of all people, standing next to him with that odd pebble in her palm. Beside her was a man even taller than he was with ratty jeans and in desperate need of a shave. Clark looked between them both. There was a passing resemblance, kind of, between him and the other guy. Tall and dark for what it was worth, but not a lot there, not like looking in a mirror or anything.

Still, he didn't think that he'd be so sloppy in any universe, that he'd have a week's worth of beard growth. It would clash with the uniform.

"Chloe?"

She shrugged and sat down next to him on the fountain's rim.

"I was checking in," she looked over at the other man and then pointed back at Clark. "Tom, Clark,uh, the other one. Clark, Tom."

"I knew he wasn't the other me."

"Should I be offended?" the other man asked, while still staying standing.

Chloe rolled her eyes. "You look like a hobo most days. Bathing's fun."

"I bathe. I just am not into shaving, so sue me. No contract, no clean shaven."

"And you wonder why people don't find you Supermanly."

Clark watched this verbal ping-pong match and frowned, his mind taken off his own drama for a few minutes. They certainly did bicker like old marrieds even if they weren't. "Huh so he's the actor one."

"I direct now mostly," Tom corrected, as if it was that big a difference. "I'm the powers, mostly, free version, well at least the good ones."

Clark laughed, despite his mood. "Oh she mentioned that the first time."

Tom narrowed his eyes at Chloe as if he had heat vision. Good for her he didn't, even if she did heal. "Wow, thanks for spreading my embarrassing tail and tale---"

"Ooh, puns, clever," she added.

"All over," Tom finished. "Yeah, so I'm going to on this massive limb here. Again, this is more Rosey's beat than mine but I've paid some attention once in a while. Anyway, let me guess. Your boss loves him some Elvis and your Lex is already dead and wasn't even around that long, am I right?"

"Uh yeah," he said, no longer surprised to have strangers popping in who knew more of his life than he did. Odd the things you could get used to.

"Hmm, The New Adventures of Superman is as real somewhere in some dimension as Smallville. Figures. If I have a double in Clark, yay," he said drolly. "And, well, technically Dean is Jensen-like and then there's your Bruce and Bale and wow. The possibilties now officially make my head hurt."

Chloe narrowed her eyes at him, but she decided to ignore the baiting. "Anyway, thank you. Then I don't have to play catch up with you then, Tom."

"I'm fuzzy, not completely out of it. Uh, if it makes any of this less weird, his counter part was on the show once...I mean the actor one."

"Oh, of course," Clark replied, struggling to keep up. Most of what the other two said probably wouldn't ever make complete sense.

"You know, come to think of it, he did try and cut into your chest, Chloe, and nevermind. It doesn't go anywhere good."

Chloe's eyes widened comically and she shook her head. "Knox. Oh, I remember. That guy was older, a lot and, well, puffier."

Tom shrugged. "Well the actors don't get to be immortal, fun times."

Chloe frowned and looked at Tom and started to say something but shut her mouth instead. Clark filed that away for later. Interesting.

"Thanks for stopping by. Are you going to bring everyone from every universe here eventually?"

"I only know Tom. It's not that exciting."

"Keep digging, Sullivan," the other man groused half-heartedly.

"I...not that I don't appreciate a stop-in, but I've had the worst night of my life. Lois found out today."

Chloe and Tom looked at each other and nodded. Huh, at least both understood that when it came to him, there really was only one thing to know.

"The phone home part, right?" Tom asked.

"That's a little blunt," Chloe said.

"Okay the wearing a cape and tights and flies around saving people all the time part. Better?"

Chloe rolled her eyes again and patted Clark's shoulder. "She didn't take it well? She should have. Mine did."

Tom looked back at Chloe and mirrored the calculating expression that she'd given him ealier. Clark added that to his mental notes pile, as well. Huh, they both knew something about the other but weren't big on sharing it with the class.

Even more interesting.

"I didn't get to break it to her the way I'd have liked. A villain told her first and then I did try and explain it, and then I was already planning to propose to her so I did that and now she's thinking it all over cause it's a lot in one day."

Chloe worked her jaw like for the first time in her life talking was hard for her. Clark got the feeling it rarely was. Tom just shook his head.

"Amazing, we've officially found someone less smooth than your Clark."

"Excuse me?" he asked, not amused by the other man kicking him while he was down. "How would you have done it?"

"I don't have to. I'm just a guy."

Chloe narrowed her eyes up at him like she wanted to slap him. "With occasional fluffy curls."

"Thank your husband for me, oh please do."

Chloe glared at him once more before turning back to Clark, himself. "Maybe you should have given her just the time to process the 'I'm Superman' part before springing the 'would you marry me' bit on as well. That might be a bit of a one-two punch."

Tom was quiet when he spoke this time, animosity and general snippiness actually gone from his voice. "Now if I'm off on this, fine, because I've worked very hard to forget all the details of the show where I can. I think I'd have done better without you all as pen pals, but---"

"Point?" Chloe asked, tone calm.

"But, Chloe's Clark is, uh, a bit proposal happy is probably the best way to say it."

"With Chloe?" Clark asked.

"Lana, long story. Anyway, he had a couple times he tried, once he was seriously considering it the day of her wedding to Lex Luthor so, uh, he wasn't very good at timing either."

"Oh, I haven't even seen Lana in five years."

"Yeah, well," Tom continued. "The first time Clark ever did that, he did a big one-two like that, showed Lana everything he could do, and then he asked her. She had to wait to answer him."

Chloe frowned. "Huh, I never knew it took a pause, not that it worked out that way, which is great for me and the litter."

"Probably the fate of the planet, too," Tom agreed. "My point is that, yeah, dumping all of that on anyone is going to take some thinking time even if they say yes."

Clark set his chin back on his hand. "You didn't see the look on her face. It's not the Superman part that upsets her or the powers."

"I told you it wouldn't be," Chloe said, her voice still so calm and soothing. He could see then, for the first time, what his counterpart must have seen in her. She reminded him of Lois, that same kindness and faith.

"She's mad because she thinks it was fun for me to trick her, that I liked keeping her in the dark and making a fool of her."

"And you don't," Tom said, rocking back and forth on his heels a bit. "Look, again, thank you other Clark for dragging me down to this level, but lame or not, I get having to keep secrets for the good of you and yours. When you see her tomorrow, just explain that part to it. She's hurt cause anyone with a brain cell should have figured this out."

"Hey!" he and Chloe both snapped.

"Glasses are not magical, oh please," Tom replied. "My point is, when she has a chance to absorb the shock, just try and get it across to her that it's not her you set out to make fun of as much as really sharp needles you're trying to avoid."

"About that--" Clark started to ask.

"No," Tom finished. "Not talking about it. Anyway, Clark, trust me on this. It's going to be more than fine. Clark and Lois are basically like peanut butter and jelly, uh, for this universe," he added after an uncomfortable beat.

"But she hates---"

"She doesn't," Chloe and Tom both echoed.

She stood then and gave him a quick hug before walking over to the other guy. Offering him a crooked grin, Chloe slipped the rock out from her pocket. "Besides, if all else fails, Tom's wife ultimately has the best advice."

"Being?"

Tom smirked, "'Don't fuck it up.'"

As prosaic words of wisdom went, they weren't all that inspiring.  
**

Chloe sat down in the sofa in Tom's office once they popped back. The trips always disoriented her a bit, despite her meta nature. Maybe she didn't have the best inner ear canals, who the Hell knew.

"Thanks, you know," she said, taking in easy, measured breaths. She'd feel well enough to go home in a few. "You're an ass."

"And with an attitude like that, you wonder why I'm not thrilled when you visit."

"You're acerbic but still," she continued. "You had good advice. You said things, I didn't think Kris would even be able to offer. I didn't expect to pop in into severe romantic drama, but the timelines in all these things are never that reliable."

"A given," he said, surprising her a bit by sitting on the other end of the sofa from her. It was large enough that their legs, even as long as his were, weren't touching, but she assumed he would have taken his chair back.

"You know I'm a reporter right?"

"No really?"

"And I know when people hesitate on things, and I hear what they aren't saying."

"Look, if this is about needles...it's not anything. I had a decade of scripts, right? So I know that's how Clark thinks, and anyone who's ever seen and X-Files episode can add 'government' plus 'alien' and get 'scalpel.'"

She sighed and didn't press that. Al had her jobs, and Chloe had her own. Tom was distinctly not on her docket. She had five others, thanks. "No, about Clark and Lois, like that's always a foregone conclusion or something. Like I said, my cousin and husband can barely be in the same room for more than a few hours without bickering."

"Then they function better than we do."

"Touche, but am I missing something here? Mine was the only name Clark didn't recognize the first time. I...what gives?"

He sighed and slipped off his cap. "Well, there's an Al here and she looks just like you."

"Yeah."

"So then that world is just messed up, but at least there's no fleas."


	2. Chapter 2

III. The Bitterest Pill to Swallow

"This whole thing sounds pretty pickles to me," Kara said, hovering slightly over the couch cushions. "There's another place beyond L.A., and it's a different version of Kal's adventures and I'm not even in it? I'm clearly the best part!"

"The expression is 'bananas,' Kara."

"Whatever."

Chloe rolled her eyes at Kara, who depite her superheroing, successful veterinary pratice (are you really that shocked), and her college-aged children, would always feel like the same mouthy teenager in tube tops she'd met years ago. "Imagine a world where you're not the best Kryptonian around or, well, around at all."

"Oh, I'll show up, believe me, and when I do, I will be awesome."

She chuckled. "Okay, great, then you'd love to come with me. I got so busy, and now the kids are thirteen and who even knows how much time has or hasn't passed there. I'd love to see how it worked out for them."

"Kal know there's another one you visit?"

"It was twice, and once he saved Jack-Jack and once Tom was there."

"Kinky."

"A world of no, Supergirl. Clark knows. He's not all that interested in going over, but he's heard."

"So you wanted a trip buddy?"

"You're bored to tears. You don't have patrol tonight, your kids flew the nest literally in some cases, and the hardest case you have this week is a neutering."

"It's true. You've cut off one set of balls, you've pretty much done it now."

Chloe blanched at that. She was pretty sure it had been a big deal to Shelby long ago, and that even the suggestion of it would give Clark or Jack-Jack nightmares for life. Kara had a way with words.

"Right, so you're in?"

"Definitely."  
**  
Clark decided right then and there that Chloe had some sort of sixth sense that accompanied her empathy. She'd just never copped to it directly. She somehow had a radar for narrowing in on the worst days of his life. It amazed him she'd never popped in during Lois's almost marriage to Lex.

Maybe she wasn't a hundred percent after all.

She and a tall blonde woman appeared in front of him as he was sitting, wishing desperately that he could get drunk, in the apartment he shared with his wife. Lois was out with his mom ostensibly shopping but probably crying a lot too. Clark was too scared to pick up his hearing to double check.

Nothing made sense today.

Nothing at all.

They'd tried so hard for a child, and now that Star Labs said that wasn't even an option because of him? The whole situation burned worse than any Kryptonite ever had.

Chloe spotted him and frowned, sitting down immediately on the floor before him.

"This isn't the same apartment as before. I can tell it's bigger."

"And there's a nice wedding pic up too," the taller woman said. "Uh, the dress is a little retro, but that's nice. Huh, she doesn't look a thing like Lois, not really. Her boobs are way too small."

Clark sputtered. "God that was rude. Who are you?"

"Oh sorry, Chloe said you didn't have a me-counterpart yet." She flashed him a bit of heat vision and he froze. He'd met other Kryptonians by now, met other survivors. Some were good, and some had caused him nothing but trouble. "I'm Kal-El's cousin, Kara Zor-El. When you meet yours, well, our fathers were not very companionable brothers."

"Oh."

"Yup," she said, sitting down besides Chloe. "So why do you look like your dog died?"

Clark laughed, a low broken sound. If only it were that simple. "You have children, don't you? Chloe mentioned that Jack-Jack has cousins too."

"Yes, it's not that unusual. There's an indian reservation a few miles outside of Smallville. The Kawatche are technically related to us. I mean a different House, of course, but about five hundred years ago, their founding father, Naman-Ro, was one of us. To be honest, it's why they shapeshift too."

"I don't do that."

"Pity, it's pretty awesome."

Clark grimaced, thinking about growing a muzzle and tail every month. No thank you, but he'd do that if the trade off was being close-enough related to humans to have a child. "It's not necessarily my thing."

Kara shrugged and started to shrink. Honey gold fur swept over her face and hands and her ears lengthened. Her pace picked up to a speed that even he could barely follow, and, in no time, a beautiful blonde cocker spaniel was wriggling out of the clothes she'd been wearing.

After almost four years in Metropolis and patrols galore and even meeting other aliens, Clark never would have really believed it, if he hadn't seen it. He'd never watched Jack-Jack, after all, had looked away out of politeness that one time. However, there was something impossible in seeing someone who could even heat vision, shifting so seamlessly between forms.

"My God."

The dog barked and nodded.

Chloe rolled her eyes. "She says and direct quote 'I'm awesome.' And, no Kara, I'm not interpreter for the night."

The dog yipped, tone clearly indignant, and set her head on her paws.

Clark decided to ignore that whole tableau for the sake of his rapidly dwindling sanity. "To each their own set of powers, then."

"Amen," Chloe added. "You look a million times worse than last time we met, and we all know Lois said yes, so what gives?"

"Lois and I...well that's to say...we can't have kids. I don't know why your Clark can, and I can't, but I definitely can't."

Chloe bit her lip and looked back at him, large and luminous eyes regarding him with more pity than he thought possible. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know, really I didn't. Frankly," she said, gesturing to Kara. "She got pregnant without trying, and I mean she was like twenty and in college and Clark almost murdered her over it."

Clark frowned. He could relate to that. His mom and dad would have killed him if he'd done that, not that he apparently could. He assumed any Clark Kent would be about as strict.

Kara growled but kept her head still on her paws.

"She says---"

"I can fill in those blanks with expletives just fine, thank you. Yeah, Lois is being great about all of this but it's my fault. I'm the alien in this, you know?"

Chloe nodded and patted his hand. "We have eight, maybe you can borrow Gabs. She's more trouble than she's worth most days, and now that Dean's putting the idea of hunting in her head, I swear."

Clark gulped at the thought of dealing with someone with Chloe's rough edges, the tendency to attract fleas, and he didn't even know what 'hunting' meant. "I'll pass."

Kara sat up again and licked at his hand.

Sighing, he patted her head which was silky smooth at least. "Thanks, I don't need your pity. I just feel terrible for letting her down. Like I said, we tried so hard and if I were normal---"

Chloe shook her head and squeezed his hand this time. "You're not. To be honest, no one in this room is. If Lois had wanted normal, she'd have married anyone else."

"That doesn't make me feel better."

"It should. She's choosing this because you're worth it, and you need to believe that."

"Well now I can't give her what she deserves."

Kara stepped back and her hair started to recede back into her skin, in a few seconds she was sitting back in front of him, clothed and as normal as when she'd started. Nope, he was definitely not getting more used to that.

"I've found that the universes find a way to even things out, really. You all might adopt. It's a fate, I've heard from Kal, that isn't so bad."

Clark smiled despite his mood. "No, I wouldn't trade mom and dad for anything."

"Exactly," Chloe replied. "Besides, I wasn't actually kidding. We have more than enough Kryptonian kids to go around, well, teenagers, but same idea."

"Oh and an Emma, Lena, and Alexander for good measure."

"Yes," Chloe continued. "I'll have my friend Kris talk to the Tams, maybe you all just need a rock of your own."


	3. Chapter 3

IV. Billy Idol Moments

Lois had never been to this Smallville before. While she'd met Chloe and Clark on her own turf over the years, as well as their eclectic associates, she'd never come to this side of the fence. Frankly, once they'd adopted or, well, had a baby dropped on their doorstep, she'd been busy. The last eleven years had been spent taking care of a very special child.

Not that Chloe and Kara couldn't relate, or this Martha Kent for that matter.

It was just that Simon had no business being in a town covered in Kryptonite, and she wasn't sure why Kara's kids had either. From what she knew, because of Chloe, her Clark's kids were immune. Must be nice. They'd only had one or two close calls with their Simon, but it was enough to scared the ever-living Hell out of Lois. Best not to chance it.

However, if she was going to chance it, she was going to make it worth it. While her son was busy over at his grandparents' house (who else could take care of a speeding eleven year old?), she and Clark had been invited for, without a doubt, the weirdest place she'd ever been. For what it was worth, Kent Farm with its idyllic little yellow farmhouse was tastefully decorated and the front yard arranged with lovely flower arrangements that really added to the atmosphere of the whole affair.

Weddings, even in alternative universes, often looked very similar.

The fact that half the guest list was dressed in spandex (Clark and Jack-Jack's friends from, well, "night work"), and the other half were double gangers to each other wasn't even the tip of the iceberg of weird.

No, that would be the bride, who, to be blunt, was really coming down to the wire making sure her litter were in wedlock. She wasn't even sure why Emma was wearing white because, outdated custom or not, it looked a little silly on a woman over five months' to term with quadruplets.

There was an uncomfortable amount of tension in the air, and she had the distinct feeling that Emma's father was furious this whole thing was happening. The death glares he kept sending Chloe's Clark was a tip off. Or was it Jack-Jack's father who was mad? The two of them looked so similar, although she was still betting the one with a freshly trimmed beard was Tom. It wasn't like Superman went around scruffy.

Not usually.

Lois decided to avoid all of that when Tom and Clark, whoever was which, got into World War III before the ceremony had even started yet. Obviously, no one was going anywhere for a while and her Clark was working hard with Chloe to basically keep the two men from killing each other.

Or, okay, well Tom from hurting himself unless he had Kryptonite and, frankly, the anger radiating off of both of them, made it a good a guess as any that was possible.

Sighing and feeling a bit out of step with everything, Lois went into the farmhouse kitchen to grab water. It was just too much spandex and fishnets in the front lawn and just talking with superheroes while trying not to look down was too hard. It was just...were codpieces always so obvious?

When she walked in, she was treated to another one of those Doublemint Gum commercials, although, it was never as dramatic as it was with Clark and Tom. To put it bluntly, neither of them looked like they had twenty-two year olds. That was less true with the two men here. She knew Chloe, Clark, Tom and Al, fairly well, and she'd met Kris a few times. The man with the thick brown hair but the deepening jowls that came with age had to be Mike. The man beside him, in a suit that obviously cost more than even Emma's dress, would be this place's Lex.

The bald head was ubiquitous.

Who knew?

Better that than being a dog.

She loved Clark dearly, but that wasn't something she was sorry she'd missed out on, not one bit.

"Hey," she said, grabbing a bottle of Deer Park and sitting at the old oak table. "It's getting tense in the barn. I think Tom's going to kill Clark, or Clark's going to kill Tom, or both. My Clark and Chloe are on it too." She frowned at this Lex, who was far younger than Mike. Apparently immortality ran rampant around here, at least with the powered. "So maybe they need a very smart person there."

He snorted. "I'm sure Lena as maid of honor has that covered. However, I can understand if you're not comfortable with me, Ms. Lane. I've heard under different circumstances, you'd have had the surname 'Luthor.'"

"It's not something I want to think too hard about," she said.

Lex tensed, and his expression hardened. "You'd assuredly not be the first, just ask Lena's mother." With that he stood and walked out in movements so fluid, Lois almost wondered if that was part of his mutation as well.

Mike snorted and sipped a beer from the island. "Ignore him. His charm goes over my head, and I was him."

"I get more confused by all of this than you can even imagine."

"Oh, I can imagine. I was the one who found Clark first after all. By the way, be careful which drugs you do. You really can pick up the most random skills."

"Come again?"

"Mushrooms gave me a crash course in dog, and Clark came to me the first time our paths met. He's hopeless on his own."

"So I see," she said, eying his on coat and tie. They were fine, if slightly informal, and a bit wrinkled. "And you're in here?"

"Because I'm smart, and I could tell Tom was planning something and have even odds that this isn't happening today."

"And you're just sitting here."

Mike sighed and drained his drink. "Al, God love her, isn't very bright. I mean she's smart in her own way and creative as anything, but she has less common sense than I do and that's saying a lot."

"So Kris and Tom keep you away from trouble?"

"Fuck no. They just get us out of it. Al and I find plenty. She was the one who wanted interdimensional pen pals to be a thing. You can see how that worked out for Tom."

She frowned. "I had heard, never seen. I didn't really believe it. This Clark didn't actually do that, did he? I mean, how is that even something you can spread?"

"Don't know, don't want to know, not a science guy. Bet a science guy wouldn't actually know either. For what it's worth, Lex and Lena are geniuses and they haven't ever come up with a 'fix,' so to speak. I assure you, it's very, very real."

"Wow."

"Yeah, Kryptonians---uh, ours---are really nice. I love my nieces and nephews and all, but don't let them bite you."

"I'll remember," she said, voice low.

Mike shrugged and started in on the next bottle by his hand. Judging by the whole mess, Tom had offloaded an awful lot on Mike before starting his fight, which, again, without any green rocks was really stupid unless he wanted to break bones, but she was fairly peripheral on all of this.

"So he's upset Clark bit him, okay, it's been decades, right?"

"Three."

She considered that, the lines at Mike's eyes and the greying of his temples. "You know that, I can't tell those two apart worth a damn. Chloe and Al or you and Lex, sure."

"Kris and Lana don't look alike, but we don't associate with Lana so you wouldn't know."

"Issues?"

"Oh this Lana's a psycho; it's fun times, man. I let Lex handle it. Kris is a mastermind enough on her own; she's just on our side." She laughed but sobered when Mike didn't. "Not actually a joke. Never piss my wife off."

"You people are way too complicated."

Mike did laugh this time, although it was slightly bitter. "Understatement."

"Anyway, I'm just saying that..."

"Yeah, I assume there are things that Clark doesn't talk about with you, and I don't mean League crap."

"Uh, we don't have one."

"Boring," Mike drawled. "Anyway, more in a 'I don't want to worry her' way. Our Clark's got buckets of things that even Chloe can barely drag out of him, and when she can't do it, she sends Al in."

"Hmm."

"Yup, Tom's got oceans of it and more from a 'if I ignore it, it's not happening' way. Which, hey, if it had been me, not him, you could do worse to cope and not go batshit, assuming we aren't currently."

"This is happening."

"Where I'm from, you're fictional so forgive me if it's not that comforting. Moving on, Tom never even thinks about that. It's not like he doesn't know...I just think he's never allowed himself to think about it, total shut down. But it's not just him."

"Emma is, uh, 'special,' too, right?"

He nodded. "Inherited, that's the bitch of it, literally."

"Yeah, but then doesn't that make her and Jack-Jack mostly match? She doesn't have superpowers right?"

Mike laughed again. "As much as Emma and Lena wish she did, God no. She's harmless, which, considering Al's lack of common sense and Tom's temper is really, truly for the best. No, she's more normal than some, not as normal as pretty much anyone else we know, depending on how real our side of the rabbit hole is. Who the Hell even knows anymore?"

"And you're on the way to being fully hosed."

"Two won't do that."

"I see, and everyone's having a smackdown in the barn because of?"

Mike set his drink down and quirked his head at her "You're a lot quieter than Chloe's cousin. I like you better. You're like, I dunno, Barbara Walters style. You make people want to talk to you, don't just stampede into them. Plus, you are one Desperate Housewife I don't mind looking at."

"My Clark won't kill you, but I carry a taser, just so you know."

Mike smirked. "So maybe those fans weren't so crazy about that one theory after all. You and Chloe are far more alike. Besides, I was serious, the allusion you don't get but if you were from my world, it's too easy not to take a shot."

"Thanks, I think."

"Anyway, the big answer to your question is that Clark and Kara didn't tell you all everything because it's odd, even for them, and it's embarrassing as Hell."

"There's more embarrassing than fluffy curls."

"Not a damn bit of imposing, is it?"

"Nope."

"Yeah, well, big family secret. I'm not even sure how much of the League even knows. I would sort of love to see Batz's face when he sussed this out cause, of course, he has."

"And?"

"Jack-Jack was born with a tail."

"Oh, huh," she said, not sure what the reaction for that was. He looked fine now, for what it was worth. Nothing odd was poking out in his tux.

"No, I mean the whole nine yards. Do not think too hard on it, as I never wanted to and I was in the waiting room that day. I just mean that he was born a dog and didn't even change the other way till he was about a year old, give or take."

Lois blanched at that and, finally surrendering, walked over to the island and waited for Mike to hand her a beer as well and open it for her. "I'm going to need that."

"Definitely."

"I...was Emma? Help me out here."

"No, Hell no. If she had been, I'm sure Tom would have had a heart attack right there and boom. No, but Emma's pregnant."

"Oh everyone noticed."

"Yeah, all of them," he said, draining his beer with a fervor she was beginning to get, if she was understanding this correctly.

"Excuse me?"

"All. Of. Them." Mike repeated as if talking to a small child. "All four are like Jack-Jack. Kara, Al and most of Jack-Jack's cousins knew."

"His sisters?"

"Would have had the common sense to say something. Chloe and Clark too."

"Al wouldn't."

"She did. She's so excited. This location was her idea."

"And they told their families what now?"

"Right, sure, that would go beyond well. The Hell they know. You see anyone looks like either of them here? I sure don't, Chloe and Clark excluded."

Lois whistled. As complicated as Simon and her Clark's lives were due to their origins, nothing topped the craziness that followed Chloe's family around like it was in a contest to top itself.

"Wow."

"Yup, but she was talking with Emma, and Tom and I were going upstairs to get help her with something and we overheard it all. So, yeah, if Clark and Jack-Jack don't die today, it's not for lack of trying."

"I...jeez, I should go maybe help my Clark try and calm this down. This is the Chernobyl of weddings."

"Or the Krypton, maybe a bigger deal." Lois slapped him, and Mike rubbed at his cheeks. "What was that for?"

"That wasn't funny, at all."

"I meant the analogy. This is world-ending bad right here," he sighed then and stood up. "I don't think anyone's getting married today, and I really don't think there will be a lot of visiting between our side and theirs, hopefully you and Chloe will keep it up. She's good people, as blind-sided as the rest of the rational adults here."

"Ouch, duly noted for Kara and Al."

"They should know better, and I'm professionally that guy who doesn't know better."

"What?"

"Deciding on something."

"Do I want to know? I've had enough creepy. this version Kryptonian genetics lessons to last forever."

He shuddered, drawing her same conclusions, and shook his head. "No, about Chloe."

"I thought she wasn't in on it."

"No, I mean, you ever wonder why you've met so many of the other analogues over there, even if Kara took a while? You ever wonder why you don't have a cousin?"

"I have some."

"Not a 'Chloe,'" he said. "She doesn't exist anywhere else. How odd, right? I mean, he's not a dog anywhere else, such as I know, and I know a lot, but she's never been anywhere else before this. All the other worlds, ever? It's him and you, always."

There was a gasp then, and they both turned to find Chloe coming into the kitchen. Her make up was messed up and her hair had fallen from its curls. She looked between Lois and Mike both, and Lois felt, at least, that she'd been thrust into a day of way too many secrets even for a family with as many that came standard as the Sullivan-Kent clan.

Chloe, for her part, recovered quickly. Her tone was cold and steady when she spoke. "Tom left, and you, Alex, and Kris are welcome to stay or to go home. She knows how, after all. I...Emma's upstairs already crying an awful lot. There's nothing today."

"Chloe, look, we were talking and I was giving Lois the Cliff Notes to get the fight better when it broke out and you weren't supposed to hear that part."

Chloe considered him and it occurred to Lois then to worry, to hope that Chloe's ability was as benign as she'd always assumed it was. If she could use it to hurt someone, Mike would be in deep shit.

The other woman nodded briskly. "How long?"

"What difference does it make?"

"A lot or you and Tom and Al and Kris...none of you would have kept your mouths shut if it didn't. How long has my Clark known this?"

"Always."  
**

"You know the day that you died stopping Doomsday? Or how about the time that I woke up in a morgue drawer?"

"Yeah, familiar," Clark said, frowning back at her from their bed. "Or when Jor-El killed my father or when Zor-El almost ended the world and Kara went missing? Or, hell, even the week I spent stuck the second time I ever shifted? They were all shitty times. This goes right up there with them. I've never seen Al that wrecked, and I was scared Emma was gonna drop the litter right there. Oh and there was another thing, what was that? Right, I really fucking hate magic and I don't like it being used on me or mine. He'd been saving that. I thought the Tams were harmless."

"Not if Mike's rashes over the years are any indication," she said. "Whether that blows over or not, I'm actually going to say it gets worse than that."

Clark paused and quirked his head, listening the way he always did, looking much more like his canine other half with the gesture. "No one's in labor."

"God, that would be the topper on the shit sundae, but no, you lied to me."

"Believe me, Chloe. I didn't know. You think I'd sit on that for four or five months, however long it took Dr. Kara to notice? No way."

"No, about me."

"Your dress was nice."

"No, try again. You lied about, I dunno, everywhere else."

It hurt to speak then because she felt so much like she felt all those years on the Lana-go-round, like she did at sixteen on the loft steps when she'd made one of her worst decisions ever. How stupid was that? She'd been married for thirty plus years to Clark, bore and reared his children, and literally couldn't leave his side. If she did, next time he shifted, he'd never change back.

These Kryptonians, at least, were built in with a fool-proof mate-for-life switch.

So why did it feel hard to breathe to discuss it?

Why was she suddenly scared this universe really had gotten it wrong? She'd joked often with Kris and, when they were on speaking terms, with Tom about it. That she and he really worked better together in some ways, were pragmatists, while Clark and Al were too sweet and naive for their own good, even now. Maybe she'd been closer to the truth than she thought. She'd seen looks when her Lois had first come to town senior year. God, the week after the Gatorade incident of which no one must ever speak ever, she'd cried herself to sleep, thinking of Clark smiling at Lois after she'd dunked him.

Maybe they were supposed to end up together, like in every other version of the story.

Clark frowned. "I don't know what you mean about 'everywhere else.'"

"It's always 'Clark and Lois,' isn't it? Mike said something to not my cousin about it. I knew when we were over there, there were things Tom and Kris wouldn't say, looks too. The fact that Clark didn't have any clue who I was, has never ever met a 'me' always bugged me."

"Mike shouldn't have said anything."

"I caught him mid-rant, it wasn't completely his fault. He said you'd always known this."

Clark sighed, and drew a pillow to his chest. "They mentioned it. I didn't want to believe them because, believe me, the thought is beyond horrifying. I like Lois fine, but God no. Her lack of taste in music alone would have killed me in a year, invulnerable or not. I didn't think it was really a complete pattern, always true, until Jack-Jack went through the wardrobe."

"But you knew then for sure. It's been fifteen years, and you've known for sure."

He was there then, hugging her, and she resented their speed sometimes. It was a pain when they'd been younger and Clark more high strung, when he'd used it to end arguments he no longer wanted to have. It was more annoying now though, when she didn't want to be cuddled or touched, when she wanted to focus on her anger and hurt.

She pulled away then and glared back at him. "No, you can't...don't hug it better. You lied to me and made Al, Kris, Tom and Mike help you do it."

"No one wanted you to feel bad. What the Hell does it matter?" he asked, pacing fast enough to make her dizzy. That damn speed again. "In one version my mom and Virgil Swann have me and Lana's place. In another poor Clark and Lois can't even have kids, and we were so blessed with that. No one else gets the paws and tail alter ego. They're all different."

"But Lex, Lana, Lois and you are all in it. Jimmy too and Perry. I'm the abberation."

"Again, see paws, tail and a litter, not to mention a grand-litter. Chloe, my life is so completely different than I ever thought it would be as a kid and apparently way weirder even among other aliens from Krypton. We win. I mean, you can't possibly think that I'm not in love with you. My body has me dead to rights. I can't even be me without you."

"Then maybe things lined up wrong, maybe you were supposed to be with Lois or maybe your body is just massively messed up from living with Green K in your town. Who even knows?"

"Chlo?" he asked, reaching out for her and she side stepped him. He could catch her, she knew that, but he wasn't pushing. "I love you."

"Maybe you shouldn't." She said, grabbing a comforter and pillow and heading out the door. She'd join Al and Emma in exile too.

Chloe just couldn't be here anymore.  
**  
V. Bittersweet Symphony (or The One Time for Clark)

Clark didn't like to use the pebble on his own. He'd been stranded twice before on his own in another dimension just because of Al and company, and he wasn't a fan of it. He didn't mind Al or Kris, okay still now mainly Kris, snatching him over to the other side. He wasn't worried when Chloe took him to the different Metropolis, either. Alone, though, facing the possibility of being lost in the wrong place without back-up, that kept Clark from going solo most of the time.

Company wasn't really an option today.

Chloe, Al, and Emma, the three musketeers of this whole wedding fallout, hadn't even been home when he got up. Neither had Chloe's car. It hadn't taken him long to find all three of them in Lena Luthor's penthouse in Metropolis. Lena, little Lena whom he'd known her whole life, had come to the door, treated him like a door-to-door salesman, and demanded her leave and give all three women space.

Her boldness and hauteur then, really did remind him of her mother, Lana. (Long story, don't ask.)

He got it. All three of them claimed to need space and Lena was trying to help with that, but she was doing it wrong. All three of them needed to fix things with him, Jack-Jack, and Tom, not hole up in an apartment. Clark hadn't been able to get that point through to Lena, however. That part was pure Lex in her. Once Lex made up his mind on something, well, sometimes it took everything and a solar flare to set him right again.

That left Clark with nowhere to go, especially since Al was his source of advice when Chloe was mad at him. So he'd come up with an idea he didn't even understand completely, just an instinct. He'd had lot of those in his life, first ones he couldn't recognize for what they were and then those that he just wrote off as the dog part of himself----as Sherlock---knowing best.

Maybe his other half in Metropolis had advice. Lord knows, Chloe and, to be fair, he had given tons to that Clark over the years first. Consider this time for an even exchange.

The pebble was smooth in his hands and strangely warm, humming with energy as it always did. Clark was concentrating so hard on it that he felt a hand on his shoulder and blushed, realizing he hadn't been snuck up on in years. Perking up his ears, he sighed at the familiar heartbeat behind him.

Turning, he frowned back at his son. "Sentry Lena not letting you through either?"

"She's evil."

"Well we did know that."

"More evil than usual."

"She's a good friend, loves your fiance like crazy, and usually doesn't break the law."

"You know she's eventually going to take over the world, right?"

"I doubt Lex would let her."

"Really?"

"Not unless he got a sizeable portion and Luthors suck at sharing so nope. She's just sticking up for the others."

"And it sucks," Jack-Jack replied, eying the rock. "I don't think going to talk to Emma's dad is going to help anything. We talked for an hour yesterday."

"Oh we yelled, and there was some curses of the literal, magical kind involved."

"That was perversely impressive. I always thought those were idle threats and, actually, thinking ahead too since lead boxes are easier to notice and disarm."

"Yeah, great. And now we know why they never could have been trusted with anything more than paws."

Jack-Jack sighed. "Till now. Look, about Emma..."

"Buddy, your mom and I had a massive fight and it had nothing to do with your, uh, kids," Clark blushed then and looked back at the floor. He could do the math, exceedingly well. He knew exactly how the configuration in Emma's stomach had happened, what they had to be done. Tom was furious, but Clark wasn't exactly thrilled either. "That is a discussion I'm going to have with you after she and I are patched up. I...you're too old for chores or punishments, period. Although I think you're getting who you mainly hurt by lying was Emma."

His son humored him by also staring at the floor. Clark could tell from those five seconds he'd actually bothered to look up at him. "Believe me, know."

"I...I can't even understand what you did or why you would ever choose to do that. I'm not...your Aunt Kara and I...." he sputtered and Jack-Jack coughed politely as he floundered.

"Then don't try."

"Not today," he said, letting it hang there. They'd fix it later, hopefully. "It was wrong to lie to us. Not just her dad, although you had to know Emma's plan was beyond stupid."

"I thought we could at least get past yesterday."

"Wrong. The principle of it was wrong. Why would you lie in this family? We're all we've got."

"Then why is mom in Metropolis and you're about to go to the other one?"

Clark looked up and narrowed his eyes at his son, who was doing the same back at him. "Because this is what happens when you lie and get caught, something you know about now," he replied before flashing them both over.  
**

Clark hated that he couldn't have gone with his wife to pick up Simon from his parents' house. If he could have gotten his story done on time, then he'd have flown her over and had a nice relaxing family dinner at his farm to celebrate the relatively sane and happy family he had after the clusterfuck the not-wedding was yesterday. There'd been a big explosion from a faulty gas main in midtown though, and he'd fallen desperately behind on an Intergang series piece.

So that left him here, scrambling to think up copy, when he just felt drained.

It almost figured that the other Clark and Jack-Jack would pop in. Why not make his shitty day complete?

He was about to ask if he could have a bit more time, that he'd lost a lot of ground after everything that had happened yesterday in the barn, but he stopped then. Both Clark and his son looked more thrashed than if they'd actually gone several rounds with Zod and his ilk.

Ouch, things had only gotten worse since last night.

He winced with sympathy and gestured toward the sofa nearest his kitchen table. God bless apartments that worked off of negative space and nooks.

"Going that well, huh?"

Jack-Jack eyed both men and sighed. "I'm going to go to the coffee shop down the sleep. No offense, Uncle Clark."

"None taken. There are things you're always too old to hear, and when your parents are fighting, that's a top contender."

The young man nodded and ran off, leaving him with his fluffier counterpart.

Clark surprised him by sitting down at the other end of the table. It was a very long time before he spoke. That didn't bug him. It gave him time to sort out his thoughts, and he knew you couldn't rush the other Clark. He was very quiet by nature, reserved, and oddly timid in private. It clashed with the Superman image, but was no less true. He wondered about that, wondered if that hesitation and self-loathing was because his doppleganger was ironically both more than and sometimes less than human, if it was all because of his canine nature.

If he had to bet on it, though, he'd wager it was because Clark had been told so very young about their origins. Fourteen? Christ. He had been barely able to process it at twenty-five. Fourteen was barely out of middle school. No wonder this Clark was such a mess, biological quirks aside.

"Chloe's not on the farm right now."

"Is she in Los Angeles trying to kill 'Zoolander?'" he asked, in deference to Chloe's favorite insult for Tom.

"No, she's with Al and Emma, sulking, but because of me. I...she overheard Mike and your wife talking."

"Should I be worried?"

Clark laughed at least, and that made him feel better, not that he'd meant to get that reaction. "Uh, pardon the expression, but not if he were the last man on Earth."

He focused back on his work after that crack. That expression sucked if it was somewhat true about yourself, especially in the other Clark's case. Outside of Kara and some psychopaths in the Phantom Zone, that Clark really was the last one from Krypton. Their whole cabal.

"Then?"

"I never wanted her to know that there aren't other 'Chloes,' and that it's supposed to be me and Lois."

He nodded and finally set his laptop aside, his full attention on the other man. "It's supposed to be you without a snout too. She did realize that your version is sui generis, right?"

"That's what I said! Now Chloe's not only hurt about the lying, I'm sure you'll get an earful from her eventually."

"No doubt."

"She's convinced that our universe messed it up, and that she must be screwing some grand design up because I'm not with her cousin. She's not even that mad at me, just worried she's holding me back, which is beyond crazy!"

"What did you say to make her feel better?" he asked, ferreting it out like he did any other lead. The other Clark was a nice guy, but had no talent with words in a conversation, at least. Nine times out of ten, as well meaning as he could be, Clark said the wrong thing, that one thing guaranteed to piss someone off even further. "Exactly."

"I said that I didn't think it mattered, we never matched up anyway, and I never wanted to hurt her."

"That's it?"

"Well and that my biology doesn't lie, yeah."

Clark frowned at that. That was where the most discrepencies between them lay. It was fortunate for his counterpart in a way that, for whatever reason, his ability to shift also seemed to go with his ability to have children. Not that he didn't love his son. He sincerely doubted he could love Simon any more than if he was his own flesh and blood, the same way both Martha Kents had loved and protected them. Some bonds didn't need blood. It still didn't mean that wound wasn't always just barely scabbed over and easy to pick open again in his own heart.

"I don't know what that means."

"Right, because we're different."

"Yes, is this because of the dog-thing?"

"I'm a purebred," Clark snapped, like it made any real difference. A mop was a mop, after all. "Yeah, I...me and Kara at least on our side...we pair-bond."

He blinked, really trying to process that. It wasn't helping. "Come again?"

"It's a mating thing, okay? I'm not proud of it. It makes me sound about a million times more alien than you, and I do know that. You know they say wolves mate for life?"

"That's not actually true."

"Well, skinwalkers and whatever you want to call Kara and me do. It's this annoying like glitch or catch-22, whichever, in our biology. We can't ever change back once we're mated to someone unless they sleep---literally in the same room not metaphorically---next to us on the days we have to change."

Clark considered that. He had wondered an awful lot last night about Jack-Jack and Emma. He can't say that something far far more metaphorical hadn't crossed his mind. It was a relief that was not the case.

After all, dear Jesus.

"So you're bound."

"Basically. Jimmy's barely meta if you squint super-hard, but it's just enough that he's---"

"Aging as much Kryptonians or Chloe and Lex do."

"Yeah, exactly. His abilities are super, super negligible, but whatever works. Still, in a way, we can't help what we do or that we do it. It just goes with whom we love, and then that's that."

"Interesting. So Emma?"

"Hell if I know, and some things even Al never shares so draw your own conclusions. Anyway, what did I say?"

He shook his head and frowned. Clark was older than he was by quite a bit, and, even if he weren't had been in the hero business far longer due to the fact his Smallville was a mutant war zone and always had been. Still, it amazed him how dense the other guy was.

"Biology, Clark?"

"Yeah, I explained it."

"Your best defense to your wife of thirty plus years is that you should be together because she's your get out of flea dips free card?"

"I didn't say that. Chloe doesn't even like Monopoly!"

"You're sure you were raised here?" He huffed and his own papers fell to the floor in the wind that kicked up. Huh, Lois was right and that was annoying. He owed her some chocolates.

"Why do people keep asking me that?"

"Because you test common logic sometimes, but your heart's in the right place. Clark, Chloe's gonna need more to make her believe you than 'Kryptonian mating says so.' I mean, didn't you?"  
**

Chloe was so tired, and she'd been front line in more Apocalypses than she could count. Hell, considering once in a while Sam and Dean would call her up as the best no-strings-attached resurrection in town, she'd been through Apocalypses that weren't even on League time. Still, she couldn't ever remember feeling as wiped out, except maybe the day Clark had died.

More than just for a few minutes with a Jor-El reset, let's put it that way.

Everything, even this, did pale next to the first time meeting Doomsday. That was true.

But she was still wiped, and it hurt to even breathe. To think. Lena, God bless her conniving little heart, had taken Emma in the limo some place nearby for ice cream. The girl had promised to stick to some store on this block in case labor came. Chloe wasn't worried. It was still too early, and, besides, Lena knew more about Emma's biology than even Kara. After all, she was her father's daughter.

The penthouse was so cavernous, so empty, except with her and Al in it that she felt like even their voices must be echoing everywhere. Al was sitting next to her on the sofa in the main salon, a cup of tepid coffee clenched between her hands more tightly than the Jaws of Life clamped onto a door. The other woman hadn't sipped it in over two hours, but maybe just holding it was a comfort.

"I'm sorry," Al said, her voice so quiet that Chloe thought she'd imagined it. Then it came again, louder. "I'm really sorry for everything."

"Clark asked you not to tell. I was his secret keeper for a very long time. I know what it's like, and how many times I was put between him and Lana, not wanting to hurt the other. It was his responsibility to tell me about all the other stuff...the relationship with Lois in all the other places."

"No, I'm sorry about that, but the apology was for Emma and Jack-Jack, for planning everything out with Kara once we knew and not saying anything."

"We were going to find out. What? You were going to hide them for ten to twelve months? What was the end plan, here?"

"To get past the wedding, I guess, although if we'd been able to have Emma and the Little Litter just hide out for a year, that would have been great too."

"Al, come on."

"I had a year."

She frowned, completely confused. "What?"

"I had a year. That was the deal we struck. I had a year to try, and if I didn't, I promised I'd never even talk about it again."

Chloe gaped at her friend, working her mouth up and down and trying to process that. Wow, it was just the forty-eight hours of revelations, wasn't it? She'd never known this, and she was willing to be that even Clark, as close as he and Al were, hadn't known either.

"Wait, huh?"

Al leaned over and set her mug on the glass coffee table. Lena favored modern, clean lines as much as her father ever had. "It was a bet, if you want to think about it that way when we tried for Emma. He was betting that we couldn't, that he could run the clock out and then it wouldn't ever be an issue again."

"But he lost."

"Yeah, and I won. It came down to it, really. I was so frantic in October cause I'd promised."

Chloe, despite everything, snorted. Of course Emma was conceived then. Considering the girls love for all things horror movies and costumes, including a make-up effects career, yeah, that made so much sense. "I see."

"I'm not dumb."

"I never said that."

Al eyed her, her eyes as piercing as Chloe's had ever been on a good day. "You think it. You and Tom and Kris, sometimes even Clark. You think you have to protect me from myself, like I'm permanently three."

"Well, we think the same of Mike."

"Not funny. I'm not stupid."

"You are reckless," Chloe countered. "We wouldn't even be more than actual letter sending pals, if you hadn't been."

"Believe me, I know."

"Do you regret it?"

Al paused and looked back toward the bedroom she and Emma were sharing for their stay. "Today is the first time I ever have. Years and years, and I've always thought it was for the best, really believed it. Now? I honestly don't know. I didn't mean for so much to happen."

"Clark didn't either. If he'd known...frankly, if that cure Sam always talked about...if it did work and wasn't just bullshit they'd tried themselves, Clark would have offered."

"No he wouldn't have."

"Oh, he would have, and not because of what I can do. I'm not guaranteed on stuff that big. Kryptonians eat through energy."

"I'm aware."

"But he would have just the same, offered his heart on a platter literally to fix this mess. It's not fixable."

"I know, and I had to beg and play the clock out to get Emma here."  
"And he adores her."

"I knew that was inevitable, too," Al replied. "But he never would have...maybe Emma knew that too and she did this deliberately, she's so hard-headed."

Chloe nodded but kept her expression neutral. Al maybe wasn't completely self aware about her own stubborn streak. "True."

"I don't know, and I guess only Emma and Jack-Jack do. However, once I knew what was really going on, saw the ultrasounds. No, I didn't keep my mouth shut cause I didn't think it was a big deal. Of course it was a huge deal, Clark and Jack-Jack probably got off easy."

"No, no they didn't. I'm just glad the other Clark was there and, even then, Jimmy had to break it up."

"I get that, but I just wanted to buy time before that happened. Before everything shattered. Emma loves me a lot, but she just...she's such a daddy's girl."

"And maybe he just needs to get the Hell over it. That's his biggest damn problem is that he just doesn't."

Al quirked her head Chloe, and it was like a goddamn mirror today, the way it had never been, that piercing focus and attention. Wow, no wonder she was such a good reporter. People didn't crack to her enough if she stared at them like that every time. Damn.

"What?" Chloe asked, not sure she'd like the answer.

"When did you?"  
**

Chloe was sitting on the balcony, annoyed that she hadn't had an answer for Al. Idly, she forced her right hand to glow, studied it as if it was the most interesting thing in the world, and maybe it was. Even Emil and Lex had fuck all idea how her ability worked or what it's limits were. It gave her a lot, not just the lives of her cousin and her husband (more than once), but also even more of a status within the League.

Also the ability to keep up with her children, to stay with them longer than if she'd been human.

And most days, even now with all the good she'd done, she still was awfully tempted to trade it. Knox, such a funny incarnation of the other Clark in her world, wasn't the answer. Not cutting into her heart, thank you. It sucked not to be like everyone else, and she hated it, deep down. Hated that lingering fear she'd go as catatonic as her mother and that isolation from being so fundamentally different. Al saw a lot more than any of them gave her credit for; she just was nice enough to keep it to herself.

"Well, at least I'm a huge hypocrite. That was what this day was missing, Chloe Sullivan---self-aware hypocrite."

"You're not," a familiar voice said behind her and, despite the way they'd left it last night, she turned and hugged Clark tightly. She'd really missed him. She always missed him.

"You came back?"

"You're not the only intrepid anything in this family."

She nodded and pulled back, forcing herself to keep her distance. It wasn't his fault or hers that The Powers The Be had screwed up their universe so much. Some deity out there must have just misread the blue prints and put her in for Lois's place.

"Do you really think that your cousin could do what you do?"

"Other Clark's Lois and he get along great. She's smart and capable. My cousin is tough and loyal and tenacious. She'd be great for you."

He shook his head. "You're not even applying troll logic at this point. I mean, as our world is laid out now, do you really think Lois and I would make a better team."

"Well, we had like a four year head start here, and I'm pretty stubborn. I'd already really gotten a handle on being the Woodward to your Bernstein. The sidekick stuff just came naturally."

"Right, exactly."

"And," she breezed. "The Puppy Day switch back doesn't lie, right? You said it yourself, you really do need me so I guess our universe is just fine."

"I said that wrong."

"Oh."

Clark sighed and hugged her tightly to him and, weak as she was, she let him. She was always a sucker for him. Had been the first day she met him, on Dark Thursday, and even the day she'd found out his furry little secret. That would never change, no matter how things stung.

Clark pushed her chin up and stroked the side of her face. "I mean that I don't care what everyone else got. I got the best deal. My instincts knew it long, long before I ever did. I don't care if the rest of me, for lack of a better term, don't get a 'Choe.' It's their loss. As much as the kids love Aunt Lois, this is what it was supposed to be, and I believe that. You and me, okay?"

"Then why hide it?"

"Because you'd obsess and be sad and bolt. I know you, and I know your emotional intimacy dodges by now, even if you haven't done them in years." Clark kissed her and she melted into the embrace, and it felt like The Daily Planet basement all over again. "Fuck the other universes, they don't matter."

"But maybe I do hold you back."

"No, you don't. In the other worlds, most of them at least from Mike, Lex and I aren't friends either. Our kids don't play together. He doesn't help us save the world a lot of the time. That doesn't mean this doesn't work great."

"I---"

"And we know no one else is furry, stupid as it is."

"It's cute."

"Sure, right, and in other places my dad's still alive. No one gets the best hand in this. I wouldn't, even now, trade the litter for dad. I couldn't do that, but we got what we got, and we got the best deal going. It might not make for the most exciting comic book..."

"Probably not."

"...but it's ours," he said, tracing the filigreed edges of her bracelet. "I wouldn't have given it to you if I didn't mean it with everything I have, me, Clark and not just Sherlock's instincts or whatever weird mating crap goes on with the Kal-El part of it."

She laughed and thought of a scrapbook she'd made him long ago, when Kara was still knew to the farm and Jimmy didn't even know. "I love all three parts of you just the same."

"And that's why I'm so lucky," he said, kissing her once more, this time something chaste and sweet on her lips only. Nothing and deep and hungry, not for now. "Only one place got anyone like you, so that's amazing odds, like sweeping a lottery."

"The other Clark helped you figure this out. Kris is busy, and you're not this competent on your own."

"Maybe, but I'm right. This, even if it is possibly an accident, is a damn good one."

She paused then, frowning back toward the main salon. "You're wrong."

"Chlo, we just went through all this!"

"No, about the one place thing. We're not."

"No, I really did check with Mike and Lex poked around too. This is the only place where there's a 'Chloe Sullivan.'"

She rolled her eyes and pointed back to where Al was sitting staring off at nothing. "Yeah, but we're not the only ones, not quite."  
**

"You know," he said, sitting down next to her long after Emma and Chloe had gone to sleep. Who knew what experiments Lena was probably up to tonight? "We have to stop meeting like this."

Al laughed and he liked that, even if it was a shadow compared to how she normally sounded. "Wondermutt, I'm flattered but that ship has sailed."

He smiled and kissed her temple, and then humored her in a way he hadn't in a very long time. Bones cracked and fur spread, and he still wished he had Kara's natural talent for all of it. Still, in very little time, he was slipping out of the folds of his favorite red jacket and scurrying across the sofa to sit near Al.

She rolled her eyes indulgently, and stroked his head. "I'm still taken."

"Are you?"

Al shuddered a bit and looked down at her hands. There was no ring on either of them; they'd never made it official, and Clark had never asked why. He assumed it was some L.A. thing, even though the part of him that would always think like Jonathan Kent thought that wasn't very honorable.

"We always work everything out. He's just so, well, him."

"An ass," he barked.

She thunked behind his ears, and he twisted with the movements of her fingers so she didn't break them. "No, just not coping well or denial or so much anger. I don't know, pick one."

"I pick all."

"I'll talk to him tomorrow. He'll come around to the Little Litter."

Clark whined and nuzzled her hand a bit. "I hope so. I just...you've helped me with Chloe more times than I can count."

"You're bad with women."

"Everyone says that too."

"Wondermutt, even with three daughters, you're so clueless," she said, pulling her hands back and settling them on her lap. Clark took that as his cue to give her a bit more space.

"Al, whatever you need, I'll figure this out, not just for Emma and Jack-Jack, but for the grandkids too."

"Pups," she corrected, tone resigned and then she started to cry.

That threw Clark, he'd only seen her do it once before, and that scared him. He'd never seen her and Tom closer to splitting than then. He wonderd if now was worse.

"Who are we kidding? There's no spin for this, nothing to make it better. It's bad, Clark, and I was too dumb to give Emma more rules or stop her or do something. There's nothing anyone can do but wait about a year till it settles itself out and then, well, they'll look normal but they'll be..." Al continued through her tears.

Clark sped down the hall the room he shared with Chloe and shifted back. Speeding on some pajamas, he raced back out there and frowned apologetically back at Al when she realized what he'd done. "Like me, I mean all the way so, not just like Emma."

"Yeah, I don't even know what to do," she said, crying harder, not even caring that he'd changed so fast. Maybe he'd broken her startle reflex as badly as he had Chloe's.

Anguished just watching her, he swept Al up in a hug and rocked her as she cried. Some things needed arms; they just did. "I'm sorry but I'll fix it."

She stopped and looked up at him. "I don't think you can when you're the problem."

"Then," he replied. "You'll solve it."

"How?"

"I don't know yet, either, but I know you gave me some great advice long ago, so it's my turn to remind you."

"What's that Wondermutt?" she hiccupped, rubbing at her blotchy eyes.

"'Don't fuck it up.'"

"Clark, come on---"

He held a finger up to her lips. "No, I mean it. You figure this out. You'll figure out what to say and you're probably the only one who can do that, not even Kris could and she's known him about as long."

Al blushed and he remembered why. Okay, Kris remembered him give or take six months' difference. "I do know him and I did fuck it up beyond even my previously held records."

"But you'll save it this time."

"That's what you and Chloe do. I'm the cheering section, not the actual hero. I just play them on TV, remember?"

"Not today, Al, today you're going to do a Hell of a lot more."


End file.
